


heartbeats

by lazyfish



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Aliens Made Them Do It, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 23:35:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29741610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazyfish/pseuds/lazyfish
Summary: Elena's powers are tied to her heartbeat, so what happens when there's more than one?
Relationships: Yo Yo Rodriguez/Jemma Simmons
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	heartbeats

When Elena and May arrived back from the mission, gasping and panicked, it was Jemma’s arms Elena fell into.

“I couldn’t move,” Elena said, clutching around Jemma’s shoulders tighter than she had ever held before. “I couldn’t move, I couldn’t use my powers, I couldn’t -”

“Shh,” Jemma said, running a hand along the back of her girlfriend’s head. Jemma tucked a few loose strands of hair from Elena’s braids back into place, making low, soothing noises in the back of her throat. Jemma didn’t always know how to best comfort Elena - it seemed like at times they operated on entirely different wavelengths - but it was her responsibility and privilege as Elena’s girlfriend to try anyways.

“Maybe we should give you another physical,” Jemma said, pulling back from Elena and inspecting her with a critical eye. Jemma had run a number of diagnostics after Elena had been infected by the Shrike, but maybe there were long-term effects she was unaware of. The Zephyr had a decent enough lab that she’d be able to run the diagnostic blood work again, and then they’d know where to go from there.

Elena couldn’t have just lost control of her powers, could she? Jemma was the world’s foremost expert on Inhuman biology (by virtue of being the world’s _only_ expert on Inhuman biology) and she’d never heard of such a thing happening before. They didn’t have enough data on Inhumans to be able to draw reasonable conclusions, though. Jemma hated not having enough data.

She drew Elena in for another hug, since her girlfriend still looked more shaken than Jemma was comfortable with. Elena didn’t say anything more, just hugged her tight. Jemma was dimly aware that she ought to also check on May, but this felt more important.

“Fitz,” Jemma said when the hug broke, this time because Elena released first, “can you go check and make sure the lab equipment is functioning correctly? I don’t want to have to do any redraws if I can help it.”

“You should run some tests on May, too,” Daisy murmured when Jemma began to follow Fitz into the lab. “Something’s going on with her.”

Lovely. Not only was her girlfriend struggling, so was her best friend’s mentor-slash-mother-figure. The universe couldn’t give her even one moment of peace, could it?

“Of course. I’ll check over both of them,” Jemma promised. 

The two women followed her into the medical bay, which was sparsely furnished. Jemma had been hoping they wouldn’t need to use it, much less for two agents at once, but there were two bed available. Elena sat on the edge of one and May on the other.

“Are you alright if I look at May first?” Jemma asked, hand on Elena’s knee. Her girlfriend nodded, waving her off to look at May.

May’s analysis was unsurprisingly insightful. Physically, everything about her was the same save for the scar on her back from where Sarge had stabbed her. Jemma couldn’t offer any explanation for what had happened to the older woman, an occurrence that was becoming uncomfortably common for Jemma’s tastes. She much preferred it when she knew every parameter going into things. That was before she had been infected by an alien virus, had her best friend turn out to have alien blood, travelled to an alien planet, and met literal aliens, though.

Why were there so many aliens?

Jemma gave the order for May to rest in her quarters. If she had suffered a panic attack like Jemma (and Daisy) thought, she would need the time to recuperate. That also had the bonus of leaving Jemma alone in the medbay with Elena when it came time to examine her girlfriend.

“Is there any more detail you can give me about what happened?” Jemma asked quietly as she began testing Elena’s reflexes. They were all fine, so it was unlikely the problem was neurological, but Jemma hadn’t suspected that in the first place. 

“I tried moving in the spaces between my heartbeat, like I always have,” Elena said, looking at her hands instead of Jemma. “But it was like - there was something stopping me. Muffling my heart, making it seem faster and further away.”

“You think it’s a heart problem?” Jemma did her best to hide her alarm, but she knew she had failed by the way Elena’s head snapped up. 

“I hope not.”

Jemma dug her stethoscope out of one of the drawers, cleaning it carefully with an alcohol wipe before she rounded the bed and lifted up Elena’s shirt. Elena shivered when the metal of the stethoscope touched her skin, but Jemma didn’t have time for an apology; she was too focused on the steady rhythm of Elena’s heart in her ears. It was possible, with the correct positioning and concentration, to hear each of the valves of the heart opening and closing. Jemma moved her stethoscope across Elena’s back until she was satisfied with her examination.

“Your heart sounds fine. No murmurs or other atypical sounds.”

Elena let out a sigh of relief that Jemma echoed. She wasn’t even a licensed medical doctor, let alone a cardiologist with the ability to help Elena if anything was awry. The only reason she knew how to pinpoint the sounds of each individual valve shutting was because of her cardio exam in her anatomy lab. For someone without an eidetic memory like Jemma’s, that would’ve been a lost cause.

“It doesn’t get us anywhere closer to an answer, though,” Elena said, frustration edging her voice.

“It doesn’t,” Jemma agreed. She slung her stethoscope around her neck and returned to the front of the examination table, where she could look Elena in the eyes. “Do you think… do you think it could be psychological?” she asked gently.

“What, that I had a panic attack like May?”

Jemma nodded.

“No. No, definitely not.” Elena shook her head. “I know my body, Jemma, and I know what happened. It wasn’t my head telling me I couldn’t do something, it was my body saying it couldn’t.”

“Alright.” Jemma wasn’t entirely sure she believed Elena; it would only be natural to panic when faced with the situation May and Elena were faced with, especially if Elena’s partner had already been panicking. 

“Jemma. You have to believe me,” Elena said desperately.

“I believe you,” Jemma soothed, placing her palm against Elena’s cheek. “There are some other tests we can run. Blood work, urine samples, everything. But I’m not clearing you to return to field work until we have this figured out.”

“I’m still an agent without my powers!”

“You are,” Jemma said plactingly. She rubbed her thumb along Elena’s cheekbone. “But if this is something the Shrike did, it could have wider implications. I don’t want you finding out there are other things you can’t do when it’s a life or death situation.”

Elena sighed, but didn’t protest any further. 

“Let me get the blood draw kit and a urine cup,” Jemma said, dropping her hand down from Elena's face. “I’m afraid this isn’t going to be pleasant.”

“It never is, is it?”

\---

The results from the blood work were back. Everything was normal, except for one hormone level.

Human chorionic gonadotropin. HCG. _The pregnancy hormone_.

Jemma carried the printout with her back to the medical bay, where she’d called Elena to wait. Her heartbeat was pounding all the way down to her fingertips, and she had no idea what she was going to say to her girlfriend.

The hormone levels indicated Elena was about six weeks along, which didn’t make sense. They’d hardly been apart from each other in the last six weeks, between everything that happened with Sarge and izel and the Shrike. Jemma wasn’t sure Elena had been out of her sight long enough to take a smoke break, let alone have sex with someone and get _pregnant_.

There had to be another explanation. Jemma just wasn’t sure what it was yet.

“Your results are atypical,” Jemma said firmly when she stopped in front of Elena’s exam table. “I’d like to do a manual confirmation.”

“What do you mean, atypical?” Worry pulled at the corners of Elena’s mouth. Jemma tried to speak, but everything she attempted to say got caught at the back of her throat.

“Just lay down, please,” she finally managed to grind out.” Jemma cleared her throat, trying to steady her breathing. This wasn’t Elena’s fault. Jemma didn’t know _how_ , but it couldn’t be Elena’s fault. Treating her like she had done something wrong when that was at best unproven at worst objectively false was _wrong_. She wasn’t going to be a jealous girlfriend who jumped to conclusions before hearing all the facts. Even the blood work could’ve been incorrect. Jemma didn’t know.

She wheeled the ultrasound machine over to the bedside table, flipping it on with one crisp movement.

“What are you doing?” Elena asked, furrowing her brow.

“I just need to do an examination,” Jemma siad slowly. “Hold still, please.”

Ideally Elena should’ve had a full bladder or Jemma should’ve done an internal ultrasound, but the external one was the only one she had available and she doubted her girlfriend wanted to chug water right now. Jemma applied some of the gel to Elena’s lower abdomen and placed the wand there a moment later. The image on the ultrasound was grainy black-and-white, and Jemma was far from an ultrasound technician, but she had seen enough photos to know when she’d located Elena’s uterus - and also to know that, contrary to her wildest hopes, it wasn’t empty.

“Do you see that?” Jemma asked, pointing to a flicker of white on the grayscale screen.

Elena nodded.

“Do you know what that is?”

She shook her head.

“That,” Jemma sighed, “is another heartbeat.”

“What?” Elena’s shock echoed Jemma’s, which at least made this more bearable. “But I -?”

“Your blood work showed you’re pregnant. This ultrasound shows you’re pregnant. I’m afraid that even if we have no idea of how this came about, we have to accept that the reason you can’t use your powers is because the baby’s heartbeat is somehow disrupting them.” Jemma removed the ultrasound wand from Elena’s stomach - shortest ultrasound in the world, she thought grimly - and switched off the machine.

“You believe in immaculate conception now?” Elena scoffed. Jemma shook her head. Religion was one point of contention between her and Elena, and Jemma refused to believe a virgin could become pregnant. Unless the God Elena believed in was an extraterrestrial with unexplained powers, which, looking back, was a possibility.

“I have several theories. One of them involves May, actually,” Jemma said, straightening. “But I’m less interested in the _how_ at the moment.” She reached for Elena’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “This must be a shock for you.”

“A shock for both of us,” Elena agreed. “What are we going to do?”

“At this point, I believe it’s probably better I don’t remove the hold I put on you going into the field.”

“Yes,” Elena agreed faintly. “But - after that?”

“Maybe we should get back to the twenty-first century before we start thinking about that,” Jemma suggested. Following the Chronicoms through time was enough to focus on for now. The Zephyr wasn’t equipped with anything that would help with a pregnancy; Jemma hadn’t thought do do so, since as far as she knew none of the agents were in a sexual relationship that _could_ result in a pregnancy.

Excuse her foresight not including acts of God and/or aliens.

“Do we know when that will be?” Elena asked cautiously.

“We don’t,” Jemma sighed. This all would’ve been so much easier if she and Fitz had actually managed to figure out time travel instead of just creating a glorified towing line between their Zephyr and the Chronicom ship. They didn’t know when or where they were going next - they were entirely at the whims of sentient robots from the future who, for some inexplicable reason, wanted them all dead.

“What are we going to tell everyone else?”

“I don’t know.” Jemma _hated_ not knowing. She felt helpless enough as it was, not knowing where their mission would take them or how to protect the friends that had become her family. The feeling of powerlessness was even more acute now, with Elena adrift and their team adrift through a cosmic sea.

“What are we going to do next?”

“The same thing we always do, I suppose.” Jemma shrugged. “Survive.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is never a pairing I expected to write, but I wanted an Elena ship, and, well, this happened. Please let me know what you think!


End file.
